Assisted dying law would lessen suffering says Falconer.

Lord Falconer, whose private member's bill would legalise the practice for some terminally ill patients, said a "limited" change was needed to the law to give people choice on their deaths.

But Lord Tebbit said it would create "too much of a financial incentive for the taking of life".

The bill passed its second reading in the Lords on Friday without a vote.

The proposed legislation would allow doctors to prescribe a lethal dose to terminally ill patients judged to have less than six months to live.

Making the case for his bill, Lord Falconer insisted that the "final decision must always be made by the patient", with safeguards to prevent "abuse"

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Anyone that gets to my age, 64, knows assisted dying in UK Hospitals is carried every day of the week, and quite rightly too. I have had relatives who have got to the end of the road. No cure, and loved ones in pain, with no hope or chance of recovery, or living a meaningful life. I salute the medical professionals that have the courage and humanity to go for the overdose of diamorphine. It takes a brave man or woman to make that decision. These people are very special and worthy of the highest respect.

HIPPOCRATIC OATH: MODERN VERSION

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgement, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patients recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

—Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.

Eddie